Pixar Idea

One video was all it took to inspire Liberty University alumnus Jon Negroni to write “The Pixar Theory,” an article that quickly went viral across the web.

“Every Pixar movie is connected. I explain how, and possibly why,” Negroni wrote at the beginning of his blog post.

After watching the video “Why Pixar Movies are All Secretly About the Apocalypse” on Cracked.com, which could not tie all the movies together, Negroni said he decided it was time for him to come up with his own theory.

“It started as a comment on the video and grew into a 20 minute conversation I had with various friends,” Negroni said. “Over the course of a year, I began to seriously consider writing everything out on my blog, especially since it was such a hit with friends. So I did. And the rest is history.”

After a friend posted the link to Negroni’s article on Reddit, the article was picked up by The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

“It happened a month ago, and it still hasn’t sunk in,” Negroni said. “I never expected the theory to be read by more than a couple thousand people, let alone hundreds of millions.”

In his theory, Negroni loops together all 14 Pixar movies by showing that all the movies take place in the same universe.

“I watched each Pixar movie about four or five times each,” Negroni said. “I had to watch ‘Monsters Inc.’ and ‘A Bug’s Life’ the most since they were the toughest to tie into the theory.”

Negroni graduated from Liberty in May 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in public relations and advertising. Currently, he works at Thriveworks as a public relations specialist and at Startup Addict as a freelance writer. Negroni said that being at Liberty really helped him become a better writer.

“Liberty is fully responsible for my growth, starting with Professor Bonebright forcing me to start a blog to Dr. Widgeon teaching me how to never stop having big ideas,” Negroni said. “I owe all of my success to them and the school.”

Many students around Liberty had positive reactions to the article.
“It’s genius,” Mason Betterly, a sophomore, said. “The fact that he could tie all the movies together takes so much creativity.”

According to Betterly, growing up watching Pixar films made him appreciate it so much more.

Senior Elizabeth DeMeo said she found Negroni’s success encouraging.

“To see that Liberty students and alumni are going out and being successful is a great thing,” DeMeo said. “It takes a lot of critical thinking and passion to write something like that. Jon did a fantastic job.”

Despite the success, Negroni said nothing has really changed.

“I still blog about the same things, just to a bigger audience,” Negroni said. “Being under a microscope has definitely made me more careful.”
Negroni has even started on his next big project.